Manhua / School Shock

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The year is 2017* 2020 in the animated adaptation. Sun Haoxuan, an Ordinary High-School Student, goes about his peaceful life, observing that everyone, including him, is doing the same thing everyday, and those who change merely replace others. Although he wants a girlfriend, he perceives himself to be inferior and having no redeeming features. Therefore, he contents himself with his normal, repetitive life and comes to the conclusion that life has nothing to look forward to.

That is about to change when his building is overtaken by heavily armed terrorists. They quickly take out police units sent in to get them and demand an artifact/person called the Child of Eden. If the police take their time, they will kill a hostage every ten minutes. Haoxuan turns out to be the first to be shot. Luckily for him, he is saved by a mysterious girl who wears a strange device that resembles a bee's posterior and allows flight, as well as an accessory that resembles a bee's antenna. She turns out to be a new human weapon called a Vanguard, made by putting nanomachines into a human, greatly enhancing his/her physical abilities and reflexes. The girl, Liu Li, quickly suppresses the terrorists and returns to her base.

That's not the end of the two protagonists' relationship. Liu Li turns out to be a Vanguard who's almost at her limit, and she has to take drugs every day to keep herself alive. These drugs are prohibitively expensive however, hence the military generals decide to "let her rest". Her instructor, Colonel Li, objects to this, and begs them to let her to live a normal life for another year like they had promised before. The generals are unwilling to keep their word, since they see her as a mere machine which has outlived its purpose. They're willing to compromise however, by letting her live if Colonel Li assigns her a new mission. The promised normal life is not possible, but Liu Li does not want it anyway; she has never had any conception of a normal life, and her "raison d'etre" has always been to finish a mission. Yet, Colonel Li still tries to give her a normal life, by assigning her to protect Haoxuan, who, like all ordinary high-school students we've seen in anime, turns out to be not as ordinary as he seems, as he appears to be the Child of Eden. Liu Li is hence transferred into Haoxuan's school and acts as a normal student, and so, the manhua's title is finally justified. Sadly for Liu Li however, her normal life turns out to be short-lived, as new enemies have appeared, and they also seem to believe that Haoxuan is the Child of Eden they are looking for.

Chu Feng: B.E.E. (the Chinese title, translated as "young bee"), also known as School Shock, is a Chinese manhua written and drawn by Sun Heng, and completed at twenty-three volumes (with an ongoing Fan Translation). An animated adaption began airing on July 23, 2015 for 6 episodes under its Chinese title. Full episodes are available on the U17.com official Youtube channel.

Action Survivor: Haoxuan. Any other ordinary high school student would have died under a terrorist's gun.

A Father To His Girls: Colonel Li to Liu Li, up to the point of her only opening up to him and getting jealous of A-Xuan for all the sudden attention he got. Not much of a shocker, since he is her dad, unbeknownst to her.

Aerith and Bob: Cyatheaceae, Cecilia, Malick and Alicia, as the story is set in China, or in the case of the latter 3: the friggin' military.

And I Must Scream: The Spider Tank in the prologue is actually controlled by a human brain in immeasurable pain, desperately wishing for death. This is only revealed in the manhua; in the animated adaptation it gets unceremoniously blown up without a word.

Animal Motif: A bee for Liu Li, a praying mantis for Bai Hua, a spider (Cyatheaceae) and three ants (Malick, Alicia, Shao Yu) and the Queen of the Moth, Cecilia.

Apocalypse Maiden: Inverted. A-Xuan ain't a maiden. It is also more implied, for being a possible trigger of WW 3 (on the other hand, many treat this as a given), and only if nuclear weapons like the ones in the background that are shown while all this is being explained to Liu Li are used.

The Spider Vanguard is very displeased about the loss of her twice licked popsicle.

Liu Li kills Bai Hua in a completely enraged state crying, after she mortally wounded Sun Haoxuan. Interestingly enough, it didn't give her the usual powerup connected with this trope, but simply resulted in a headshot, which she could have and would have done anyway.

Chekhov's Gun: Played with. Huai Te first quotes Chekhov's trope naming line, then explains the bomb he apparently placed might as well blow up now following that line of thinking. It doesn`t do that yet. Unless he was speaking in metaphors.

Chekhov's Gunman: Wang He. He is a Teen Genius and accquaintance of Commander Li and supervises A-Xuan's recovery. Also might be older than he appears.

Companion Cube: B.E.E., Liu Li's propulsion and weapon system, that also provides covering fire, monitoring services and medical equipment. Due to operating mainly over voice command, it at least appears to be one.

Cyborg: There's the question if containing nanomachines makes you an actual cyborg, which then would include any vanguard. Moot point, since Liu Li and Bai Hua have their electronic sensory antennae implanted and Zhou Zhongrong has an Arm Cannon.

Eagleland: Flavor 2, America, the International Bully. Comes with war threats as default negotiation tactic.

Expy: Liu Li, at the beginning, is an action version of Rei Ayanami. Then there's Alicia. Twin Pigtails. Creepy affection towards her senior whom she calls Onee-sama. Very open displayal of said affection. Being a complete bitch and drama queen about their relationship. This is Shirai Kuroko.

Headphones Equal Isolation: During the initial terrorist attack at the beginning, Shun is so absorbed in listening to a song in the mall's music store that he is completely oblivious to the carnage and panicking crowd around him. Somewhat justified in that he was also on a floor much higher than where the terrorist attack was taking place.

House Wife: Shao Yu apparently wants to become one (or, to properly quote: "How To Become A Economic Housewife).

Humongous Mecha: Present but not terribly effictive. Well, apart from being effectively Mooks. Moreover, they aren't that big. The army has quite a lot of them and sends them along with four vanguards to stop Huai Te and save Ah-Xuan and Liu Li. It makes him retreat.

I Am Your Father: Huai Te tries to invoke this on Liu Li. In a sense, he made what she used to be, so he's half right, but still: Bullet to the face!

I Did What I Had to Do: Colonel Li gave his daughter to the Chineses military, knowing fully well that she'd become a Child Soldier and not be regarded as a person by her officers. But if he hadn't, she would have died at 4. Also, his superiors understand that sacrifice is a common thing and necessary in the life of a soldier.

I Just Want to Be Normal: A-Xuan definitely would prefer a life with less fighting, explosions and murder around him. Liu Li zigzags this trope: first of all, her life belongs on the battlefield and in the barracks, which she's pretty much accustomed to by now, thus making that normal for her. She cannot live normal life, since she believes she is only suited to fight. She claims she has to fight but then admits A-Xuan is a possible escape route from her previous life.

Important Haircut : Inverted, Liu Li's hair grows several inches after Xuan injects her with healing nano-machines, saving her life. Afterwards, she lives with him and their relationship improves slightly.

People Puppet: Liu Li get turned into one (literally by getting attached to wires) for a chapter and remains conscious through out.

Police Are Useless: The terrorists at the beginning repel the cops and their SWAT team real easily, prompting the military to call in Liu Li. Averted later as Inspector Chen, who leads the police unit surrounding the mall, barges in and shoots Zhongrong dead.

Reality Ensues : So there's this injured girl lying on the street and due to spoileriffic circumstances you have to carry her home. Good thing that all girls are light... not, with this one filled up with lil' buddies called nanomachines, no wonder she's heavy.

Super Soldier : What the Vanguards basically are, if you're willing to consider them human and not just a mere weapon. Deconstructed, since they aren't long-lived (Liu Li has to face her death in about a year) and very expensive to maintain, thus a liability, though the earlier models still have it better.

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